Blue Jackets at Sharks: Lines, gamethread, and where to watch

The Sharks (35-21-9, 2nd Pacific) face a strong opportunity to continue their short streak of dominance tonight as they host the struggling Columbus Blue Jackets (32-28-5, 6th Metropolitan) at home. After two resounding wins this week, a 5-2 beating of the Edmonton Oilers on Tuesday and a 7-2 thrashing of the Chicago Blackhawks on Thursday (including a three point night for perennial Norris favorite Dylan DeMelo), the Sharks are flying high, and a meeting with a team that's lost 11 of their 16 games since the All-Star break (5-9-2) bodes well.

The Jackets are finishing up a road trip through California that can be generously described as forgettable, so far. Back to back games against the Kings and Ducks in SoCal on Thursday and Friday left the Columbus squad with zero points, a -5 goal differential, and an inescapable sense of existential dread. That may be overstating it, but they're currently tied with the Carolina Hurricanes just outside the Eastern Conference playoff picture, and that's not generally a good place to be.

The Sharks, on the other hand, are riding a tidy two game winning streak as mentioned above, and are 7-3-1 in their last 11 games. San Jose won the first meeting of the season with the Jackets, you may remember it as February 2nd, when our boys recorded a convincing 3-1 win in Columbus.

With a 6-3 win over those very same Blackhawks, the Ducks are just one lonely point behind the Sharks for second place in the Pacific and the home ice that comes along with it, so if the Sharks can keep up some portion of the absurd momentum that carried them through this last week into tonight, a win would slow a lot of pulses around here.

Sharks Lines

Evander Kane -- Joe Pavelski -- Joonas Donskoi

Tomas Hertl -- Logan Couture -- Mikkel Boedker

Timo Meier -- Chris Tierney -- Kevin Labanc

Barclay Goodrow -- Eric Fehr -- Melker Karlsson

Joakim Ryan -- Brent Burns

Marc-Edouard Vlasic -- Justin Braun

Brenden Dillon -- Dylan DeMelo

Martin Jones

Aaron Dell

Scratched: Tim Heed, Paul Martin, Jannik Hansen, Marcus Sorensen

Injured: Joe Thornton (knee), Joel Ward (shoulder)

DeMelos three assist night against Chicago on Thursday must have really ruffled Heed's feathers. It probably confirmed all of Petey's suspicions that DeMelo has finally cast off his outer husk and emerged from his chrysalis into the blinding light of a new day as the neo-Orr he was always meant to be.

Also, Fehr's back.

Blue Jackets Lines

Artemi Panarin -- Pierre-Luc Dubois -- Cam Atkinson

Sonny Milano -- Nick Foligno -- Oliver Bjorkstrand

Thomas Vanek -- Brandon Dubinsky -- Boone Jenner

Matt Calvert -- Mark Letestu -- Lukas Sedlak

Zach Werenski -- Seth Jones

Ryan Murray -- Jack Johnson

Ian Cole -- David Savard

Sergei Bobrovsky

Joonas Korpisalo

Scratched: Taylor Chorney, Scott Harrington, Markus Hannikainen

Injured: Alexander Wennberg (upper body), Dean Kukan (upper body), Markus Nutivaara (upper body), Josh Anderson (knee)

Where to watch

Broadcast: NBCSCA, FS-O

Stream: NHL.tv / NHL App

Radio: 98.5 KFOX / NHL App / Sharks App